Factual
by Peter James
Summary: I have truly loved three people in my lifetime. This may seem absurd to you, either a too small or too large number, but true it is." RLHP, past RLSB


**Rating: PG for mild adult themes.**

**Warnings: References to under-age sexual relationship with an adult (not pedophilia!), homosexuality.**

**Pairing: Harry/Remus, past Sirius/Remus/James**

**Author's Note: I love these two together. Forever will I enjoy Sirius/Remus a great deal more, but aside from my love-or-dislike relationship with Harry/Draco this is my second-favorite HP pairing. Deal with it. ;) I was exploring all the new content on the website 'Scarred', and felt an inspiration take me as I paused in my steady continuation of 'Pretty Things' (sequel to 'You And Your Beautiful Soul'). Enjoy... I hope... **

**Extra Note: Bear with me if it seems awkward. I scribbled it down in less than an hour, and it has not been perfected in the least.**

**Factual**

He is not his father. Nor is he his mother. None can replace them, and to be entirely truthful I would never wish it so. He may stare at me with Lily's eyes from behind James' glasses and messy hair, but I remember that he is someone apart from the ghosts of his predecessors. He is not a savior, nor a hero. He is a boy of strong will and great heart, struggling to escape cages erected before him and the restraints of others' expectations. He is simply Harry Potter. My friend, my lover, and the last thread that holds me to life.

I have truly loved three people in my lifetime. This may seem absurd to you, either a too small or too large number, but true it is.

There have been precisely two persons that I have met who truly understand me. Comprehend my suffering, my soul, and my actions.

And in closing, there has been only one that I have not lost to circumstances beyond my control. I speak of death, the ultimate thief, when I tell you of 'circumstances'.

With every beat of my tiring heart, I continue to love them; James Potter, Sirius Black, and Harry Potter.

Only Sirius and Harry have every truly understood me, though Dumbledore has sympathized and Lily once tried her best.

One June evening two years ago, I became lost and alone as I had never been before. No unspoken hope to cling to, consoling myself with the knowledge that Sirius was still redeemable. He was gone through a veil of eternity, and with him he took the entire third of my heart that he had owned. It is difficult to live with only a third of a heart fluttering stubbornly within its bony cage, and for some time I fell into a state of emptiness. I was so occupied with my loss, the finite absence of the most precious creature that I had ever known, that I forgot the little part of me that still lived. Until it was touched with hesitant fingers by a child who was too old inside.

I do not think that Sirius ever understood that Harry was not the modified apparition of his best friend. I forgot it myself, at times. But if I kept the facts in mind, I knew that he was not. Harry was different than his parents, a person all his own, as he should be. A person that I had loved since the day that I held him in my arms, when he was tiny and fragile and looked rather like a shriveled version of the Alien. I suppose one could say this alone made my falling into a different sort of love revolting, recalling that I had been present and an adult on the day of Harry's birth. But I do not think so. He was not my son, nor did I ever consider him such, and to _love_ is _never_ wrong.

I had loved James Potter deeply. I know that he did in fact love me in turn, but Lily held him in a different sort of way. James, Sirius, and I had a bond that transcended friendship as well as romance. It was neither and both at once, in the highest form. But we grew to part ways, in a manner of speaking. James loved Lily as well, though his love for her would never be the same as it was for me. Not stronger, nor weaker. Different.

Sirius, I can safely say, was my soul mate. My love for him will never be recreated. Just as our forms under the full moon fit together, so did our entire beings. But we were torn apart by events and doubts planted in our respective consciousness's. I loved Sirius Black as no one could ever understand, save for Sirius himself. But I lost him three times, and regained him only twice.

And then we come once again to Harry. To the young man who has forsaken all that he could have had for an old man with a divided heart. I do not know precisely when I fell in love with Harry Potter. As with James and Sirius, it seemed as if it had always been thus. It was present when I woke on the Hogwarts Express to find a Dementor hovering over him, and in every moment of every day thereafter. I felt no shame, only a sad self-rejection. Harry was so small, just then, and I knew that I could never allow myself to admit my love for him. I might say that I loved him as a friend, because I did. I might say also that I loved him as a family member, and this too would be the truth. But as with the two men previous, it was far past a single description. I think that Harry has always been more adult than many would realize. When I met him for the second time in his Third Year, he was already adult in ways that even I could hardly understand. Despite my misgivings, I loved him, and I felt no shame.

I once asked Sirius, only scattered months before his exit, if it was unfair of me to love someone who did not love me the same. At the time I supposed that Harry loved me as a friend and sort of uncle, never anything other. Sirius had not replied to my query, simply tightening his arms around me and seeming to grow pained. There were many reasons for this: Because Harry was so like James, because Harry was _not_ James, and because Sirius had difficulty deciding which he preferred.

If I were to turn over and ask Harry now if he recalled when he had fallen in love with me, I am certain he could give no answer that satisfies better than my own. I have never questioned him in this manner. I have always strived to take what is given me, and never question or complain. It would be unfair of me to ask Harry questions such as that.

I cannot express how grateful I am that he loves me, that he has kept me alive and sane for the past two years. I know that he, too, is in a relatively stable condition because of me. After the war, we had both nearly lost our minds. But as we fell together, we reached out to one another and grasped hands, and then we found somewhere solid to stand and someone to lean on. A person to live for, when both supposed that there was _nothing_. We have one another, for as long as life allows it. It keeps us content, healthy, and safe inside. After all the loss and suffering that the world has given us, we wish only to continue at a quiet, slow pace. Enjoying the small things that no one else remembers, and forgetting the definition of 'adventure' and 'fighting'. For how long we will be allowed to maintain this soft comfort, I do not know. But as always, I will take what is given me and never question or complain. And Harry will do the same.

I have truly loved three people in my life. There has been two persons in my entire lifetime that have completely understood me. Only one remains. As painful or lonelyit may be to have lost two sections of my heart, it still beats with the last third.

And when joined with Harry's own remaining third... we make a loving heart that is simply chipped.


End file.
